Does this look normal to you guys? Long trails of light with M8

[KenBPhotos]

I got my 50 f/2 Planar Zeiss lens in for my recently purchased (and entirely new to me) Leica M8. I went out shooting some random things and noticed that when there was a bright light source there would be huge beams of light going off around the source of the light. I'm not currently using a UV/IR filter as it didn't come in yet. I know it's required to fix the magenta cast on black fabrics and certain other problems, but I never saw this in any of the reviews I've read. I shoot regularly with a 5D and never noticed anything this bad either. Is this normal for an M8 and if so will the UV/IR filter fix this?


Example for forum by KenBPhotos, on Flickr

 

[Snowbuzz]

You shot these through your windscreen?

 

[KenBPhotos]

Yeah, its pretty clean though. It normally doesn't affect the images too much.

 

[Snowbuzz]

Try again without the screen: it looks like bad flare rather than some weird sensor bug to me. I certainly haven't seen anything like that on my M8. I've also looked at a zillion sample photos from the Zeiss and I've never seen it produce something like that before either. 🙂

 

[KenBPhotos]

Yeah, I'll give it a shot. Probably just from the screen. Thanks!

 

[V-12]

I shoot regularly with a 5D and never noticed anything this bad either. Is this normal for an M8 and if so will the UV/IR filter fix this?

I have no idea why your 5D should be better at shooting through car windscreens at night, but this isn't anything to do with the camera, more likely the windscreen itself, or the lens, or a combination of both. Perhaps if you are using a wider aperture with your 50mm it is accentuating the effect?

 

[jaapv]

I think this shot is a lot better than one without (windscreen) flare would be.

 

[KenBPhotos]

^It's definitely not something I would normally post. I just put it up to see if that was normal with no UV/IR filter.

 

[sevo]

Could be condensation, which might be on the sensor as well, but will disappear once the camera temperature has stabilized near or above the environmental one.

If it persists regardless of weather and in indoor conditions, it will be dirt or grease. Unless you (or the camera service you employ) recently made a mistake when cleaning the sensor, it is unlikely that you get such a uniform spread of dirt all over the sensor, and the culprit will be the lens or filter (where even punctual dirt can show up all over the image).

Uh, forget the above, just noticed that you confirmed shooting through a windscreen. Want to swap the camera for a nice point and shoot? In these conditions the latter will perform at least as good...

 

[kbg32]

It's your windscreen, UV/iR filter, lens optics, and sensor combination. It's just light refraction of all of the first three together. Mostly your windscreen.

 

[theno23]

You shot these through your windscreen?

Some windscreens have fine wires running through them that can cause strange optical effects. I'd bet it's fine without, if not, I'd suspect there's something wrong with the lens.

- Steve

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Could be condensation, which might be on the sensor as well, but will disappear once the camera temperature has stabilized near or above the environmental one.

If it persists regardless of weather and in indoor conditions, it will be dirt or grease. Unless you (or the camera service you employ) recently made a mistake when cleaning the sensor, it is unlikely that you get such a uniform spread of dirt all over the sensor, and the culprit will be the lens or filter (where even punctual dirt can show up all over the image).

Uh, forget the above, just noticed that you confirmed shooting through a windscreen. Want to swap the camera for a nice point and shoot? In these conditions the latter will perform at least as good...

I second that observation. I think a lot of things went "wrong" here. "Wrong", of course, if that's not what you were looking for.

When I noticed this sort of effect (using my Canon 50D) a couple of times, I realized that I had a not-so-neat UV filter on the lens. Then I cleaned it and I noticed that "sharpness" was still wanting. Had the sensor professionally cleaned (as I suspected accumulated oil smear on the sensor, something that I experienced with both the M8 and 5D in the past) and it-be-gone.